Funny....

There is something extremely "funny" about listening to some tunes on christmasfm.com while playing Battlefield 4....... such a contrast with happy seasonal jolly songs and the vengeful killing of internet people in the face with rapid bursts of high velocity death dealing bullet intensity.... 

Yet more Eve online....

Still lots of things being talked about with Eve, more in a positive way than anything else. It's still good to see.

Crossing Zebra's 101 has it's own vid site http://eve101.com/. The latest vid's are about drone use and a brief run down on player organisations with the game.
The main Crossing Zebra's site has a great intro article on Faction Warfare. Well worth a read.


CCP has also brought out a new dev blog to highlight the resources available to new pilot's.
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/rookie-resources/ which has very handy information. 

This blog is an interesting read about player retention and in game "organisational happenings".


Evehermit has a great response to another bloger's post, I won't go into detail here, what Evehermit says is a reflection of how I feel about the game and the original post. Have a read.

I'll have to get some time to write up my own happenings in Eve......

"This is Eve"

I really like the new trailer for Eve Online, it's got a very emotive "I want to be there" feel that's gonna be the hard sell for many people.  Hard to pass that by.

The music has also been released on CCP's soundcloud.

Even more Eve online....

So much is happening and being talked about its giving me a great feeling about the future of Eve Online. Not just for the coming expansion but the far future of this time next year or the year after that.

The in-game world news is being used properly as the conduit to feed game changes and update the lore at the same time.

More great dev-blogs are filling in the gaps on the way to the next expansion, this one tells more about the wormhole changes. Despite my lack of interest before the more I hear about it the more I want to try and get a character involved in some way.....

They are three great resources, two linked in that that dev blog are well worth a read/listen. And JonnyPew's short vid on Thera goes to show how excited the community is for these changes.

Indeed the WH community is not the only one within Eve Online that are happy.
CCP seem to have been making great strides. Perhaps they feel the breath of other game companies over their shoulder.
A long time "noob" question and a source of derision for new players is that the WASD keys don't more your ship in space.... It may be a thing that's changing!!!! I can see how this will help new players, but I think once they get a feel for the game they can be weened off the manual control and get to clicking ;)

Lots coming to Eve... just taking the headers:

Thera and the shattered wormholes
No clone grades and no skill point loss on pod death
The Confessor - Amarr Tech 3 Tactical Destroyer
The Bowhead – Freighter
Sleeper scout drones roaming in known space
Sleeper Cache High End Exploration Sites and Polarized Weapon Modules
Ship rendering and lighting updated with Physically Based Rendering techniques (PBR)

 New UI look, window transparency options and interface icons
Opt-In Keyboard Ship Control
Opt-in New Star Map
Blackbird, Rook and Falcon Ship Models Redesigned
Tech 2 Hull Variants for the Onyx and Eagle
Incursus, Enyo and Ishkur Ship Models Redesigned
Visual effects updates to asteroid belts (One I'm really liking!!)

Special Edition Dreadnoughts
New Pirate Apparel
Kill Report and Contract Notifications
Improvements to Market Sell Order Creation
Public CREST API Updates for EVE Tool Creators
Old Trial Account Character Names Freed Up

Read all about them on the official page.
If they keep this up for every update..... Wow the future is bright for everyone in Eve Online no matter what part of the game they play or dip their toe in .

More Eve Online....

The forum on the new fitted ship hauling ship, the bow head is interesting reading. I like to see the way the fits are discussed. I may take another look into doing burner missions again now that they have "settled down".

The new exploration sites were also given a dev blog post and show a lot of potential for earning/looting the new items. A good write up on them is here.
This is also a good read on what those changes include for some people.


A Lot is being said about all the changes and the upcoming patch/expansion/release in December.
This is an interesting view on the clone changes. Here is a view on the new destroyers and their potential role for faction warfare. 

Very interesting times. Full speed ahead!

More Dust....

CCP does seem to have a plan with Dust after all. Maybe they are not that asleep a the wheel.
This link, shows that they will be pushing out a lot of new content in the form of pre-made suits/fits. It seems that 1.9 was needed to make some changes. It may be that they are looking to streamline and pull back from being too overreaching in what Dust should aim at rather than what it could potentially do. I wonder if this is a long term thing or if it's got a limit to reach and once there Dust will be as complete as they want it to be. Still a pity they dont' seem to say their mid to long term plans regarding Dust.

Return to Dust....

Dust 514 has been more and more on my mind over the last few weeks.
Patch 1.9 had caught my interest and the changes it makes are all welcome. The 1.9 patch notes are a good read.
Even for veteran Dusters they must be excited about them.  The forums and reddit all seem to be saying yes but in a very muted way as if they were waiting for the catch.
The patch changes peeked my interest to get back into the game and I decided to give it another go.
I reconnected my PS3, started up Dust and it downloaded and installed the 1.9 patch. 

The first thing I noticed was that they removed the "stars" from the initial start screen. It had always been a cluttered eyesore, and reminded me of this, not a very good first impression. In many ways a small thing but it now has a cleaner look and feel, a bug well squashed.
The second change I noticed was that my characters selection image had changed. The patch notes say they have changed them to a higher resolution version but it looks more of a model change. That must have been some very low res images they were using before.
I only got to check some menu's, see about changing some options, collect the batch of freebies from the newsletters and have two matches. 
Both matches seemed to flow a lot better than I recall.  While playing I kept thinking that they narrowed the player view, increasing the black lines maybe, I'm not sure what was tweaked but it looks very much improved since I last played it. Frame rates, textures, it's all down to the tweaks they've done. It's added up to a lot of polish that works really well.

There seems to be a lot of work still to do on Dust. A lot of additional content to add, re-add and balance. I'm not sure that the post 2014 fanfest Dust 514 development team have it in them.  They probably haven't been given the go ahead from CCP. I wish they would be a lot more vocal as to what is next fro the game.
This interview with CCP Rouge and CCP Rattati, left me a little baffled on the direction of 514. I got a vibe that they were laxidasical caretakers that really had no motivation to push changes. I think they are marking time.

This review of the changes is of interest :)

  

Eve's new ship....

The Bowhead.  Interesting ship, I can see myself getting one for both my mains. It will make moving fitted ships in a large quantity in hi-sec so much easier. Time will tell how targeted for ganking they will be.

o7: The EVE Online Show. Episode 2

With the second episode out yesterday the news about the clone changes are great and have my full interest. I'll be willing to get my alts into a lot more pvp in clean clones. Even using cheap implants will be worth it now. As will skilling up alts that I once thought had to stay at certain skill levels due to the cost of clone upgrades. It's a great change.

The news about a wormhole system that is a lawless version of Jita is not so interesting to me. At the first mention of it I was curious but then the reality sank in a few second later, the first thing I thought was that I'd never see the system or want to go there even to just say I saw it. 

The idea of it is interesting but the reality is of no benefit for me. 

CCP will need to add an incentive for people to use the system. If it was the only place that certain WH items could be sold to NPC's for Loyalty reasons etc. I'm sure CCP will be adding more info and telling more about it and it's use. Regardless I can't see any reason for me to interested right now.  

I would like something of my little idea to be used ... I think drone ships would be a cool addition, a real game changer in wh space. I'd want to go there then.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0aRE4BBg0I

DayZ checkup....

With Christmas coming up I've been asked the inevitable question on what I want. My wife is understanding of my gaming so she know that getting a game I want for a chimbo pressie is a great way of both pleasing my "hobby" and keeping me out of her way ;)

In checking out some options I was sidelined and started checking out DayZ again.
I checked it out further looking for reviews etc when came across a great series of video's, I've found them great entertainment as well as showing the "true" game play.

Web Summit 2014

There are a wide range of people doing presentations & discussions on a wide range if subjects. From can androids feel, to authenticating information on the web sharing information and misinformation on the news in warzones.
That last one I found very interesting and was presented by Anne-Marie Tomshak. As its featured on the current live feed I don't have a direct link to it. I will in the future.If you do look at the feed it's about 1 hour and 6 minutes in.

I've only gotten to see a small fraction of the presentations but all I have seen are very well done and thought provoking.

Video's and live stream are on this youtube channel.

New Eve exploration site in testing.....

This one was over on JonnyPew's, more content is good in Eve in all regards :)

Dust in it's wake....

I was really excited that Star Citizen's FPS Demo looked so good, a whole new dimension to the game I was expecting to be pure spaceships.
Not only does it make Dust 514 look like it's standing still, Eve's Incarna, Walking in stations is a pale shadow that just got stomped on.

Here is the Demo footage.
 
Here is the full presentation.

October 2014 update....

A lot of news and patches out for both Wow and Eve, I'll mix that into my goings on.
Brace, Brace. Brace! Eve, Wow and BF4 .... This is going to be a long one!

 
Eve has seen my usual P.I. and skill queue updates. This is soon to change as the unlimited skill queue is pushed out with the next Eve patch/expansion/update. That will cut my daily maintenance of my mains by 50%!
It's had me thinking about the P.I. I might extend them to a once a week rotation of update planets and sell items.
Both my mains have seen very little activity and overall I've been questioning what to do with them. I'm still mulling that over. It may take some time.

There was a new 101 video from Crossing Zebras, makes me wonder why CCP dont' do this type of thing themselves.  Blizzard have had and have updated their own WoW version for some time. But then again CCP does encourage a lot of player participation and endorses the "meta" game.

The Eve Vagas event brought lots of information.  The keynote speech was interesting.
T3 destroyers being the big thing for me, not that I can see myself really using one but to pick something new for the hanger would be nice. We'll see what they can do on release.... then pick one up cheaper later ;-p
The new tech and the new "Tug" ship coming are of great interest. I can see the tug being used instead of the Orca in hi-sec for moving ships.
The newest info about some of the sleeper tech being dangerous makes me want my story of sleeper tech to come true.
The event showed a lot of the long term Eve development and it's going to be very interesting.
It was a good event from what I have seen online and a good introduction the next Eve release, the info site is here. The main vid from that does go into more detail.
Very interesting times ahead indeed.


Eve Valkyrie was at the event. A good Eve Valkyrie writeup was done here.


The new music that they have released, the main menu music, is one of the best I've heard them release since the music used in the Inferno trailer ;)

The Vagas event also had a section about the new player experience, I found it very interesting, I hope they continue to work on it.

I was surprised that Dust 514 was not even mentioned and had Zero presence. The Dust forums have been awash with the anger since the fanfest fiasco and with CCP saying nothing at large events is even more of a snub and PR disaster.
Dust got it's biggest update since it came out, in my opinion. This patch does more to expand the game than the rest of the patches that band-aid the game. In saying that I've not been drawn any more to play the game other then to login, have a look around and log out. I might try a few matches here and there but I've had no long time palying it. BF4 is way better a multiplayer shooter. Dust's Eve link is the real draw for me. I will give it time in the future but not soon.

My Eve time has mainly been spent on my Null sec alt.

Hauling

Mining

LOTS of mining

LOTS of P.I.

and a mix of some SOE missions

________________________________________________________

Wow has seen me doing a lot more in the last few weeks than I've done in the last 6 month's.

The new patch 6.02 and it's mini update 6.03 have brought big changes that I've taken too more than I thought I would have. I still miss fan of knives on my Rog and Mirror image on my Mage but overall I think the stat squish and redo of the classes is a good thing. It bodes well for the expansion.

I've been getting to go back and solo some content that needed a few 90's to do. So it's been achi time for me.
I've been getting to see places that I've not seen in a long time and some that offer great screenshots :)

 

Thankfully the addon community has been 100% efficient in getting the addons updated and uploaded.

The new patch was not without it's bad points. Characters not "being found" and "world server down" messages to name a few.

Once really annoying glitch was the dungeon kick that then reset the instance. Thankfully that has no longer been happening. It all in fact seems to have been smoothed out.

Despite the removal of all the Valor and Justice points it was good to get free gold :) 

The new expansion event around the dark portal is very "mini", that's not to say that my alts were not appreciative of the 515 ilevel gear as quest rewards. But it is a very short quest chain "event".

The best I had seen was the Wotlk pre expansion zombie apocalypse, now that was truly epic.

The quest blue 515 gear as well as the headless horseman new drops of 540 epic's is a great gearing method for my alts to replace their timeless isles gear. I've only 2 Characters that can attempt the new Blackrock dungeon and I've only run it once so far. All in all it's been great gearage wise.

I got to level my priest to 90, hop into the timeless gear, do the horseman dungeon and finish the iron invasion quests and be in a really good place to head to the expansion.

I've been a disc priest 100% on all my priests I've ever had on every realm. So for this patch that all changed and I've had to do shadow as it is now the only dps class of priest for dungeons. And I love it!!!!

I like the new addition of the toy box and it does allow all your characters to use all the toys. So it stop hunting for multiples... it does open up looking for others that I dot' have lol.

I got this for my Rog. I've been after it for a while and decided to just go and get it. Very easy to get and worth it as it brings attention from other rogs asking what the heck that buff is.

 I've not had much time to try the green fire again.... I really need to do this soon!

Most of the dungeons I've been doing is the horseman to try and get my Pala the horseman's helm!!!

I also got on a Transmog buzz one night and updated some gear now that they didnt' need justice of handin's to purchase...... I spent a fair amount of gold.... 

Druid

Mage

Pala

Rog

Priest

  ________________________________________________________

My BF4 saga goes on, F'ing and Blinding in some games and howling in victory in others. I really do enjoy it. I'm not a competitive person but it really does get the blood flowing.

Assault
I've made no changes to the assault class, the SAR-21, G18, Medbag and Defib with the RGO impact grenade cover all bases.

Engineer
Like assault no real changes, P90,G18, Sraw or Stinger, Slam mine and RGO impact grenade seals the deal.


Support
I've been enjoying the support class more in Deathmach games of late.
Main weapons have seen me mix things up a lot in DM games.
The main weapon I use on this class remains the QBB, I do love it.

But I find in Deathmatch games I change this weapon for a rotation of 3 others.

The RPK-12 for my need to have a high fire rate with a silencer

Soon with Laser attachment...

 The AWS for general purpose mayhem in medium engagements. 

 

The MG4 for sheer close to medium bullet hose building clearing fun.

Secondary weapon is the faithful G18
I use the Ammo box and have started to use the XM25 Airburst a lot more than the claymore I used to use. The RGO impact again rounds out the class.

Sniper
This class sees me using the M98B rifle the most, sniper is as a sniper does.
The G18, Radio beacon, C4 or Claymore and M67 Frag finish this class off.


Carbines see me use the AKU-12 or Type-95B-1 the most.

Shotguns see me use the Saiga 12K and DAO-12 the most.
Both depend on situations and on the mood during game play :)
 
DMR's are the last weapon challenge and I'm not there to use them yet.

  ________________________________________________________

That's the bulk of my gaming fun.... hope it was interesting... Till next time o7

Another funny one.....

Time flies....

Doesn't seem so long since my last update on the blog, time flies.

I'll have to write some updates and post tomorrow.

In the meantime I've found a new fondness for the people that do the Honest Trailers ( Screen Junkies  / Smosh Games ) series on youtube.

Have a look, they are very funny.

News links and upcoming changes to Eve Online....

There has been plenty of news in the last two weeks to keep interest alive in the future of Eve Online.

As part of the news-fest was the Anomalous Materials gathering and handin event. As I don't do anything with wormholes I've no interest in getting involved. Besides even if I gathered up some friends and started, those who already live there would be over the horizon on handin's. It would have been better to set a table of rewards for so many handin's.

News about the New Notifications looks to be good but I have to admit after using it I did tun it off. I'm sure with a bit of spit and polish it will be a better feature.

I'm really looking forward to the new Sensor Overlay 2.0. It should make the visuals in space a lot more informative intuitively. Not to mention making Eve less filled with grey, that's always a good thing.

The unlimited skill queue feature is a great well needed feature. There seems to be lots of pro/con debate about it, I'm very pro. I think it will open up the door for alts to be more active and with it multiple skill queue training.... now it there were only 2 more character slots per account ;-p

The new Multisell option is a well needed addition as well.

I like that there will be slight and subtle changes to the type of cloaking/decloaking visual effect depending on the type of module used. It's the little things that make a difference :)

The changes to the scanner window should also be good.
As well as the tweaks to the way mission objectives are "guided". More in game information is always great.

I'm also very keen to see the final changes made to the "new" trial account's, needless to say I'll be testing that out. I might do a before and after.....

Lots of nice little quality of life changes, nothing major yet but a good base work is a good start. I look forward to the coming future of Eve. I hope they keep taking everyone with them for the journey.

The full list of changes coming to Eve in the Phoebe release on November 4th are here.
 

I'm a keen watcher of the new 5 Minute EVE News Recap. It's well worth a browse.
It does a better job in a short clip than the longer CCP make version in their own show. The new o7 The EVE Online Show. Here is Episode 1 I'm sure with a bit more polish it will be "better".
Another good watch has been the Crossing Zebras new 101 video's Part 1 & Part 2. Even for a veteran of Eve it's worth a watch.

Back into WoW....

Yea it happened, I resubbed for 6 month's. This will let me see the pre expansion patch, the expansion launch and a few month's of the new content.

Myself and an RL friend can't see ourselves staying in wow for much longer than that. Unless the expansion blows our socks off, but we agreed that is unlikely. So my other half may inherit a lot of items from my account. My friend said the same. She will be lucky.
 
My wow time has been mainly filled with grinding heroics to get Justice points to buy pvp heirlooms to equip a level 19 Alt as a PVP twink. I've stopped any XP gain and will see how this plays out. so far the wait times in the pvp queue's are insanely long.

I've taken my characters though the Brewfest dungeon to see about getting the Kodo, which finally dropped. Not for one of my characters that I've been doing 6 times a day for the last week of the event but for my wife who got it and the ram on her second characters first run through this year! Freaking Random number generator!!!!

 

There is one more mount I want and that's off the Halloween dungeon against the headless horseman. My favourite seasonal event in game. With luck it will drop this year.

I also got about doing the quest chain for green fire on my warlock. 

I think I was too tired  to fully get behind the idea as one part had me in an invisible maze but luck was not with me and this caused frustrations on mob spawns that kicked my áss.
I was lucky the next day to get my way around the parts to the end boss fight but I'll have to get a day where I'm 100% ready to spend a few hours to finish it off. Guides are one thing, doing it is another. I'll be back for this.

Eve Update....

Not too much has been happening in my Eve gaming.

My mains and main alt are still skilling up, making some passive isk. The main alt will be done with his training in a few day's.

A RL f hasn't been on much so I've not been able to go missioning with my Minmatar Alt.

The Null alt has still been doing a lot of mining and production, seeding the market with ships and modules. It's amazing how much time can be sucked away by doing that.
A little ratting helped along the way as well. He was lucky to get a true sansha BS pop up.

Unfortunately it didn't drop any really valuable goodies.

After killing and salvaging the 2 BS's this was their haul.

I've also stocked and fitted a lot of cheap T1 ships with t1 modules as pvp starter ships for when I no longer ave to have him in a clone that matters. I'll start to get into the pvp around the end of December.
For now I've taken advantage of a lull in war decs to finally start the SOE standings grind. I'll see how far this goes but it should be done before the training ends and pvp kicks in.

Otherwise it's been a quiet one.
Maybe the winter month's will prompt people that I know will play more. I've stopped e-mail's and texts asking if they are gonna be online.

I can see myself doing the trial alt #3 sooner than expected. I wonder what angle I'll take with activities for #3.

Changes for me....

A little warning about this entry. I feel the need to blog about my recent RL changes, to vent a "little".
I'll be posting about Eve and Wow in a moment as well, but this one first.

I am a private person, I've got friends and family I trust and talk matters over with.  However I do feel the need to say this "out loud".

After 14 years in one organisation I finally handed in my notice just over 2 weeks ago.
This has meant I've spent the last 2 weeks in unemployment (many an asteroid has been mined and many a game of BF 4 has been played).

For most people the loss of a job is the loss of a wage and would be a shocking change to life. For me it is a loss of pay but one I've been planning for, for many years. I have saved for this day. It's been a career changing moment that’s long overdue.

Holding out for a redundancy package for 4 years showed that it wasn't going to happen.
Circumstances had forced action.

Long standing favouritism with one rule for some and none for others. Years of decisions against me have piled up.
Management using HR rules and guidelines as a bat to legitimise actions. Not just against me but many others that have come and gone over the years. 

One example, I was marginalised by being given a reprimand for lack of communication when a temp role to become supervisor was coming up. The only skill an applicant needed was “good” communications skills.  I should have left then.

I found myself blocked unable to be promoted even temporarily, and the person that did get the job was hugely under skilled. I mean seriously under skilled. I'm in IT support. When you’re asked by your section "leader" how she should install Access, a basic Microsoft product. That really sent me over the edge.
This role has come up again and only one candidate can go for it.

Meetings with dept management and HR all resulting in clearing my name but no action to further my career. Talk about a dead-end.

The worst of all being the dept. head showing an “open door” policy, using it as an information gathering exercise to hammer employees. I've seen a lot of people come and go in my time and all have experienced his "kindness" in this way at one time or another.  
I learned this first hand soon after he started. I went and talked to him and stated that I was unhappy in the current role and wanted to expand into other areas. The result of this was a formal reprimand from H.R. regarding my lack of enthusiasm for the job. 
Charming. 
A lesson well learnt.

Over the past number of years this has gotten worse for me, having to take stress leave on numerous occasions.

Looking back now I should have gotten out sooner. I had opportunities, interviewed and was offered roles. I kept saying to myself that a permanent and pensionable job was its own reward. I was very wrong.

The stress of being in situations on a daily basis was not worth it.

It was a spiralling never ending loop. This was the crunch time.

There are grievance procedures and actions that could have been taken but I'm not like that. I'd rather leave them to it than to spend the next 10 years dealing with it. Let them weave their own webs within webs.  I know what other department heads think of them, long term they will get what they deserve.

With such increased levels of frustration I felt that my resignation was justified.
I could talk about this for pages but enough is enough, it's done and over with.

I need to detox from that place, take only the friendships that matter and move on. For the first time in a long while I feel great about the future of my career. 

Change always comes; I wish I'd done it sooner.